It's been a while since I did a post in this series. This one won't be very long, but at least it's something! I've been musing on the fact that, of us few remaining regular reviewers, we're not always reviewing exactly the same thing.
What am I talking about here? I'm talking about the difference between reading and readings. For example, Present Perfect has a substantial number of readings in her reviews. Mike has at least an occasional one in his. But me? As far as I can think, in over 400 Ponyfic Roundups, I have never reviewed a fic without reading it on a screen or on paper.
It's interesting to think about how much of a difference this makes. Of course, there's a distinction between a straightforward "talking book narrator" reading and a Scribbler special with guest VAs, sound effects and the like. Listening to the latter type especially has some significant points of difference from reading the story in text.
As a simple example: something that tends to infuriate me in a fic is when authors consistently mis-spell character names. "Pinky Pie" is a classic example (and "pinky pie" is worse). This problem doesn't exist if you listen to a reading of the same fic – or at least it does, but you don't know it's there. The same goes for iffy speech punctuation.
I don't think any of this is a problem, as long as a reviewer mentions when they've been listening to a reading instead of reading the text – and certainly the two I named above do that. But since I prefer to read fics, I shall continue to plough my own furrow. Anything you come across in Ponyfic Roundup will have been looked at, not listened to.
This is why I always indicate when I've heard a story rather than run my own eyes over the page, whether listening to an audiobook reader or Fimfic's native text-to-speech. I figure half the time I get psyched over a story and everyone else who reads it is like, "This was literally the worst," that difference is probably why. XD
ReplyDeleteAs some of you might know, I only use readings occasionally, and invariably for short fics; very rarely anything that would take more then half an hour to listen to (so sub-5K, 4.5K really). And really, mostly it's just Scribbler readings I get recommended; occasionally I'll find a fic to read, see it has a reading and choose that method instead, but usually only if it's Scribbler or a reader I'm well-acquainted with. And I just toss those on to multitask to alongside other things (work, video games, etc.), but I never seek them out.
ReplyDeleteSince the fics are short, I usually scan back through for details when writing the reviews anyway. Also, sometimes when listening to a fic, I will read it too, if the reading's quality isn't clear enough to allow proper concentration, or just because I'm not multitasking. So I usually end up reading it in part anyway, also off your comment on it making for a different experience, which it's important to account for.
In any case, much like Present Perfect, this is why I always note when I've used a reading, and on the rare occasions when I use a reading for a fic long enough that listening to it is an active task (over thirty minutes), I make specific note of how it may have affected the experience in the review. Recently I listened to Scribbler's 2019 audio drama of the 2014 Cadance fic Three Nights, which was 136 minutes (131 in the one-video compilation published a year later), only because I had a lengthy work task suitable to such a reading, and in the stockpiled review of such, I've certainly noted the effect the reading may have had. Great fic either way, mind.
Long story short, I too prefer to read fics. I just use readings occasionally to help fill the backlog up that bit more. Especially handy when one fic is lengthy enough on a given review week that the rest can afford to be short, you know?
Back when I was working for the medical software company, I did a huge amount of travelling. A lot of that was driving or being a passenger for long distances. I can't read in a car, particularly on bad roads, so I used the text-to-speech function on my kindle to read fics to me. (This was back when there were only a handful of fic readers.)
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, the artificial voice soon became mostly "invisible" to me. It was just another way of getting the words into my brain, and didn't feel at all like audiobooks.
My preference is to read books, but text-to-speech is still my second choice by a slim margin, because audio productions so often put their own spin on books that don't work for me, particularly in this age of get-it-out-quick-and-cheap where there is very little to no direction of the voice actors. TTS is neutral, just like text. Also, I can increase the speed without making it seem as if the book is being read to me by chipmunks.
Yes, TTS will always mispronounce certain words as in, "tying a bow on a ship's bow," but it's nowhere near as bad as an East Coast actor trying to pronounce Los Angeles street names like Cahuenga or Sepulveda.
Heh, that last bit made me smile. British place names are a tremendous minefield, after all. Loughborough is a good one (it's "Luff-bruh"). And given that I live in Worcestershire, listening to non-locals attempting to pronounce the famous sauce is always fun. "Woo-stuh-shuh" (with a short "oo") is the correct way, but my goodness I've heard a lot of other attempts!
DeleteAs an aside, I've walked past the Lea & Perrins factory in Worcester a few times -- and yes, it does smell the way you'd expect it to. :)
Among the things I'm addicted to, Worcestershire Sauce is very high on the list! I can pronounce it pretty well, unless I think about the spelling! XD
DeleteAs for the smell... I've always heard it's basically fish left to rot until they begin to ferment, so I can well imagine!
On British place name pronunciation, Sir Reginald Pikedevant's "Shibboleth" on YouTube is well worth a look.
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Delete@Cloptimist: OMFG! That was awesome! XD
DeleteThough I'm very much unconvinced by Godmanchester being "Gumster". Quite a few locals in those comments say it isn't. Maybe an obsolete form? (The video is spot on about Leominster, though. Unless you mean Leominster, MA, which is "Lemon-ster", apparently...)
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